(Frustrated sigh)
So, this asshole!
Okay, this is gonna be hard to believe, but I actually had this blog planned out, before all this Alex Jones shit happened. But, since it coincides,... (Sigh) So if you don't know Alex Jones, lucky you; I feel envious. He's a prick through and through and his and he right-wing hate-filled bullshit and conspiracies on his program, "Info Wars", 'cause apparently he's at war, with info, which should be a clue that he's full of shit...- Anyway, he's in a domestic battle with his wife over custody of his kids and in court, his lawyer argued that his radio "character" wasn't the "real Alex Jones", but that he is a "performance artist". He's performing a character, of piece of shit conspiracy nutjob that real piece of shit conspiracy nutjobs listen to.
(Sighs)
Look, I'm, not gonna spend my time here focusing on this guy, 'cause he's not worth it, but from what I can gather, there's nothing listed on his website and nothing on his radio and streaming broadcasts that indicates that he's performing an act, which would make him a fake, so "The Daily Show" is correct about that. If he, in fact, is a performance artist, fine, but I don't care, 'cause either way, many members of his audience thinks it's real, and have been directly inspired by him to believe things that are outright lies and even commit gross acts of violence against innocent people based on his inflammatory claims. He doesn't present himself as entertainment, which is why him suddenly calling himself that, while no surprise to anyone, doesn't excuse the actions he's inflamed and inspired, nor does it make his behavior excusable. As an artist, I can't say how talented he is, although he's pretty good in the three minutes of screen time he has in Richard Linklater's "Waking Life" and "A Scanner Darkly". (Shrugs) Basically as the previous holder of the chair at "The Daily Show" once put it when talking with Jim Cramer, "I get it, we're both snake oil salesman, but we label our bottle, "Snake Oil"...."
But, this is actually a good way to segue into the conversation of "persona". No, not the video game that I have no interest in covering and have no knowledge of anyway. And, no, not the Bergman film although I wouldn't mind talking at length about that. No, I mean, persona in the sense of what, well, the perception of the person that others see you as. Especially an exaggerated one that might be manufactured and shown to the public. You see, I was actually influence to discuss this because of a Youtube livestream that Lindsay Ellis hosted a couple weeks ago on her Youtube page, Chez Lindsay:
Now, I'm not entirely familiar with every one of the Youtube personalities that are brought up or even the ones involved in the conversation itself, but as someone who, technically is also an internet personality, (I mean, this is a blog, you're not reading it in the New York Times, yet) who does try to generate a persona, this itself is something that intrigues me.
Now keep in mind, this isn't something that's internet exclusive. Everybody has a persona, in particular every famous person and celebrity. They go out of their way to portray themselves and give people the perception that they want, whether this comes in the form of an actor picking particular roles or when somebody puts themselves out there politically as either a liberal, conservative or something in-between, or whatever. Every aspect of them, is apart of what makes up a persona (Or one aspect can be a persona itself too). Some might be close to their real-life personalities, some aren't, but either way, it's a persona, and I've been thinking a lot about it lately, 'cause I do think that there are, (sigh) issues out there, when it comes to understanding the differences between one's "persona" and the "person" themselves, and in particular with celebrity. Internet celebrity, particularly female internet celebrities have been dealing with this for awhile, but I see it all around in mainstream. That's one of the reasons I so vehemently defend Lena Dunham several times on this blog, because anyone that actually looks up all the crap that she's accused up thoroughly and understands her perspective and persona, and those are two different things by the way, will see that she most of the time she's getting crapped on unfairly and incorrectly, mainly by people who are fucking idiots who don't know and don't give a shit, because they don't realize her perspective and confuse it with her persona. They take things literally that are clearly satirical and wit, mainly 'cause they're insistent in seeing negative because the persona she gives, at least in the main acting and writing performances is one that upsets them for one reason or another, not realizing, well, A. half the time it's supposed to upset you, and B. it's not relative to the actual person, and she has never claimed that it does.
I have a Facebook friend who bashes Amy Schumer every chance he gets for similar reasons as well, and frankly I don't understand why, and most of that is the same thing, confusing persona for the actual person. Stand-up comedy is of course a genre renowned for having a difficult line of distinction, because while, yeah, they're performing an act, their performance is still, usually based on certain aspects of the person themselves. Not always, Robin Williams was hard to pin down based on his stand-up, but you took say, George Carlin more genuinely, maybe 'cause of subject matter, maybe because of approach to stand-up, but it's not a bad comparison, what's happened with female comics from Leslie Jones being bullied off twitter to Amy Schumer and Lena Dunham getting crap, for, um, I don't know, not being thin enough to be naked and unashamed, basically. (Or as Schumer put it in her latest Netflix special, the last thing you want to be called when you put an underwear photo up, is, "brave") it's rough out there, and frankly, I have made myself known about it, 'cause as a creator, a writer an artist who knows and occasionally works with other artists, I know the process of branding and creating a persona and what that entails, and a backlash against a perceived image of somebody, against a real image of somebody shouldn't be something we stay quiet about. If everybody started calling Snoopy a cat for some reason, it's our responsibility to go, "No, he's a dog!" and not just go along with the crowd, 'cause it's popular. It's one thing to go after Bill Cosby for drugging a raping a bunch of women, because it's pretty damn obvious that he drugged and raped a bunch of women, and not that Casey Affleck is excused because he did his indiscretions while essentially being apart of an actual performance by an actual performance artist, but Cosby doesn't have that in his background as an artist to defend him, in fact quite the opposite, considering the persona he spent decades building up.
So, the stream is pretty interesting in of itself, with a good cast of Youtube personalities who have intriguing perspective, although they do, get there although they bounce around the basic conflict, but basically, it's a discussion about that conflict between making the points you want to make and having to create a persona or in some cases a complete separate character in order to express those points and get noticed and the benefits and drawbacks of that.
Lindsay Ellis, in particular, probably has one of the more unique perspectives on this than any other of the Youtube critics or creators, 'cause she had a persona that she did not choose herself. She was originally "Nostalgia Chick", a character that was created by Doug Walker, better known as Nostalgia Critic to be a female counterpart to take on subjects that were nostalgia but had more of a female bent or marketing towards them, since he was getting a lot of requests for them, but he didn't really have the knowledge or background on the subjects to cover them. Lindsay Ellis won the contest that That Guy With the Glasses, now known as Channel Awesome set up.
She's brought this up a few times in her reviews, and if you go back, and I'm not gonna pretend that I know the exact order, but her earliest Nostalgia Chick reviews are similar to Nostalgia Critic's reviews in format and structure, but eventually she started deviating from that, not only in structure but also in content, and at one point she eventually left Channel Awesome and started her own website of critics, Chez Apocalypse, which had a similar base in Nostalgia Critic's aesthetic but had more of an intellectual bent to their reviewing and were necessary as comedically-based, and now she herself with her "Loose Canon" series in particular isn't so much a reviewer or critic, although she is, but she fits more in the realm of an media analyst or theorists through her video essays. Which makes sense for several reasons, for instance she has a documentary background to begin with, so this is more in her vein of work, but also, think about it, she had a persona, essentially thrown upon her, that wasn't entirely her own. Doug Walker created Nostalgia Critic himself and at the point where he was at at the time he held this contest, he had years of developing and establishing this persona of his, but she had to take a character and essentially meld and twist it until it fit something that more resembled the kind of analytical work that she wanted to do, and even then, she eventually abandoned the Nostalgia Chick persona entirely to formulate this other persona. That's fairly unique in general, and while it's not entirely impossible to start one persona and abandon it entirely to create another in this medium, she doesn't quite have that option, 'cause essentially, the fact that she used to be Nostalgia Chick is also what informs her present work and iteration of her persona. How she presents her perspective, through this persona that she's built up.
She's a perfect example of how one adapts when a persona, essentially becomes too limiting. That's the thing, a persona, ideally, isn't necessarily an exact representation of the person behind the one creating, but it's taking aspects of one's personality and perspective and basically exaggerating them to full effect. And that's often played for comedic effect, but it can played the other way too. The most notable example of this, in the celebrity culture, is the star system in Hollywood. It's not as prevalent today, but you think of somebody like John Wayne, and you don't necessarily think of the actor or the person even, but you think the image. The persona that he generated, in many ways for himself over several decades. A good example today might be, Will Smith. For two decades he's been the biggest star in Hollywood essentially, but think about the majority of the roles he's taken. "Suicide Squad" is the closest he's ever been to playing a bad guy and even then, that character shares many similar traits and values of the characters he's played in the past, almost all of which are relatively good guys, honest people, smart, at times funny, usually honorable family men or people who you can imagine being. He's the guy you wish your daughter would marry and have kids with. There's exceptions to that and that's not a negative but it's indicative of somebody who's had complete control over his persona for most of his careers and while it doesn't necessarily indicate every aspect of Will Smith, it certainly indicative of the aspects about himself that he wants to project and emphasize to the public at large. This is why Lindsay Ellis is a particularly useful example here, for all-intensive purposes most of the Youtube reviewers and creators out there, essentially chose their own persona(s), now it's definitely that some have regretted it over time, but she's had two, one that was thrust upon her and another one that's had to form out of that original persona.
Now that's a common thing, now, in most entertainment media, actors, musicians, especially young ones, often progress and change from their original persona all the time and nobody blinks an eye, but it's a little more unusual to see this happen for an internet personality, especially one who's famous, essentially as a critic or theorist or something of that nature. There's this implicit indication that, even the critics who are as over-the-top in their persona as possible, that there's a sense of truth and realism for lack of a better term to their thoughts and opinions when in reality, that can often be very different. I think some people don't understand entirely. I had one troll for instance, argue that John Oliver or Jon Stewart are not credible news sources because they're comedians. (This guy was an idiot who also once sent me a video of a right-wing commentator who used a supposedly comedic sketch in his work as well, to explain his point, so, I don't know why he thought that was more legitimate than the guys that win Emmys and Peabodys for doing it, but oh well.) That's the thing they do, is they take a persona and use that as a way to filter and extrapolate their opinion. Basically, they're acting. I know Lindsay Ellis often discusses how she's somebody who doesn't like acting, but she's acting. That's not a criticism, it's just a fact, and even if she wasn't filtering an easy and performing it in front of a camera, that's positions in a particular way to frame her essay or anybody else's for that matter, you don't talk like that in real life. It's scripted, it's formulated, it's structured. Even if it's free-form and stream-of-consciousness there's still an aspect of presentation involved.
Hell, there's an aspect of that in every blogpost I write, including this one. I think about how I'm projecting myself and considering the kinds of perspectives and personas I write with and determine which one works best to explain the point(s) that I'm making. I've pointed it out many times, some of my blogs are more satirical others are more serious, other have a combination of both, and other have different voices and influences within them. And even outside of this blog, I'm a brand. Not only here, but online and hopefully within the industry someday. I do have writing gigs and the like occasionally, and all three of these personas are different and they help me approach the different jobs and works differently. Writers do this the same ways actors work, especially people who work with voices, who name each voice and approach a cold read of a part by trying to select the voice closest to the part they're auditioning for. It's an acting performance, where I take and borrow from some sources, but collage it along with my own stuff and create my own point and my own voice and perspective filtered through my persona.
I know, I'm bordering on naval-gazing with my ranting here, but I do think about this, and the possibilities and dangers I run into with these worlds possibly one day colliding. I've said some tough and sometimes means things about people here, who I, in the future might have a possibility of working with, but you know, one or two Google searches and I might not get that job for Michael Bay or Rex Reed or whomever. Now, I suspect, that, most of those people, who professionals, moreso than my personal perspective or understand that I'm in the role of a critic and commentator and that most of the time I'm not talking about them as people and persons but them in terms of their work. That's a bit like saying, "I love you Mr. Picasso, it's just your paintings I can't stand," but in general, they're professional, they know the artistic and critic process as well as anybody, so I think most of them will ultimately understand that I'm not being personal. And I think most will, and I think most members of the audience do get that, for both the mainstream and the internet celebrities, but not everyone does.
That's why such discussions are important to have and important to have and consider, and while perhaps the days of when have the country thought their soap operas were as real as their pro wrestling was are long gone, but on the internet, this idea of persona and branding oneself and how best to do it, is not only going on, it's just starting. We're already seeing people who have been doing this for almost a decade now just on Youtube or some other streaming service, and longer for much of print media on the internet and both definitely have influenced each other and now there's several new subgenre of media that's been invented through this, and these genres are still seeking out their personas much less the creators themselves trying to figure out how to mold and brand,- I mean, hell, this is a medium that's only barely figured out how to make money doing these things. I've barely figured out how to make money doing this and I get criticism on my persona and perspective that itself, and if you go back to my early, earliest blogs, which I don't recommend you do, 'cause they're not that good, but I didn't necessarily come into this venture with an assured persona(s) either, it evolved and was formulated over time, and while I guess I could delete certain older pieces, in the spirit of the internet age, I leave them up for posterity's sake as most others do, 'cause it does reflect how much I've evolved and changed over the years doing this...-, and yeah, the people might not realize or understand where I come from occasionally, they're just gonna be disappointed or left in the dark at times. And I'm not under nearly the scrutiny that these people are, imagining what it is for them to be forming and evolving persona, all the while realizing that some aren't gonna contemplate or understand the perspectives which have formed these personas,
I wonder how it's going their personas are going to evolve in the future as the medium continues to grow. Hmm, I wonder how mine might change in the future.... Oh well, let's just hope we get more performance artists and less, fakes in the future.
Thursday, April 27, 2017
Saturday, April 22, 2017
MOVIE REVIEWS #134: "MANCHESTER BY THE SEA", 'ARRIVAL", "A MAN CALLED OVE", "BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE", "THE BFG", "THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS", "INDIGNATION", "THE PEOPLE VS. FRITZ BAUER", "TRUTH", "THE NIGHT BEFORE", "THE PERFECT GUY" and MORE!
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Tuesday, April 18, 2017
CANON OF FILM: "BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID"
BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969)
Director: George Roy Hill
Screenplay: William Goldman
Years ago, when I was much younger, I would've easily ranked "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" as my favorite western; I think it's a lot of peoples' favorite. However, the older I get, the less I feel able to defend it. I barely think of it as a western these days, and that's part of the appeal; it's a western that doesn't feel like a western, even back then that was the appeal. The movie feels less like a western and more like, "Easy Rider". (Or more like, how "Easy Rider" should've sounded like.) It's one of the most beloved screenplays of all-time, from one of the most beloved screenwriters of all-time, and it is a great script, and has one of the greatest lines of dialogue of all-time, at one of the most dramatic and iconic of moments of all of cinema. On the page, with the dialogue, and story, it works, but, still, there's a scenes where, the Oscar-winning song, "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" plays, in a western, and on bright sunny daylight, not a cloud in the sky. I mean, you can argue it's supposed to be anachronistic, well, having a modern pop song at all in this western makes it anachronistic, but that song..., in that scene, with Paul Newman and Katharine Ross trying to ride a bicycle?
The actual story of Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) is basically there, although I'd have trouble calling it accurate. In fact, to some degree, it's so inaccurate that, I almost get the sense that this film would've worked better as a musical in the vein of "Hamilton" or "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson".
(Pauses. Idea lights up. Writes down note: "Look up musical rights to adapt "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"...)
Ross's character, Etta Place was actually a prostitute not a schoolteacher for instance, and while they're claim to fame as legendary bank robbers of the Wild West is firmly in place, and yes, they're big claim is that they became successful heroic robbers on two continents, first in America, and then they went down to South America and did it again after the Hole-in-the-Wall gang disbursed. The movie, isn't so much about their success as it is, a comedy about it. Any attempt to watch the movie to get a sense of Butch & Sundance the people is a fool's journey; it's practically as dumb an idea as watching Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" in an effort to find out more about the real Hitler.
What we do find are two tragic, funny, modern-day heroic anti-heroes in the Old West. They act like their Buster Keaton, two funny things in a strange world, but they're more like Charlie Chaplin, where they're the funny thing in the real world, and the real world is coming to get them. These aren't John Wayne archetypes, they seem more like, two guys who probably idealized the devil-may-care tough guy attitude of Steve McQueen but grew up with the fragility and empathy of James Dean. And despite all the logic problems with that modern-day wit and sensibility, clashing with a time period western, it works, not in spite of it, but because of it.
Years ago, when I was much younger, I would've easily ranked "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" as my favorite western; I think it's a lot of peoples' favorite. However, the older I get, the less I feel able to defend it. I barely think of it as a western these days, and that's part of the appeal; it's a western that doesn't feel like a western, even back then that was the appeal. The movie feels less like a western and more like, "Easy Rider". (Or more like, how "Easy Rider" should've sounded like.) It's one of the most beloved screenplays of all-time, from one of the most beloved screenwriters of all-time, and it is a great script, and has one of the greatest lines of dialogue of all-time, at one of the most dramatic and iconic of moments of all of cinema. On the page, with the dialogue, and story, it works, but, still, there's a scenes where, the Oscar-winning song, "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" plays, in a western, and on bright sunny daylight, not a cloud in the sky. I mean, you can argue it's supposed to be anachronistic, well, having a modern pop song at all in this western makes it anachronistic, but that song..., in that scene, with Paul Newman and Katharine Ross trying to ride a bicycle?
The actual story of Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) is basically there, although I'd have trouble calling it accurate. In fact, to some degree, it's so inaccurate that, I almost get the sense that this film would've worked better as a musical in the vein of "Hamilton" or "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson".
(Pauses. Idea lights up. Writes down note: "Look up musical rights to adapt "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"...)
Ross's character, Etta Place was actually a prostitute not a schoolteacher for instance, and while they're claim to fame as legendary bank robbers of the Wild West is firmly in place, and yes, they're big claim is that they became successful heroic robbers on two continents, first in America, and then they went down to South America and did it again after the Hole-in-the-Wall gang disbursed. The movie, isn't so much about their success as it is, a comedy about it. Any attempt to watch the movie to get a sense of Butch & Sundance the people is a fool's journey; it's practically as dumb an idea as watching Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" in an effort to find out more about the real Hitler.
What we do find are two tragic, funny, modern-day heroic anti-heroes in the Old West. They act like their Buster Keaton, two funny things in a strange world, but they're more like Charlie Chaplin, where they're the funny thing in the real world, and the real world is coming to get them. These aren't John Wayne archetypes, they seem more like, two guys who probably idealized the devil-may-care tough guy attitude of Steve McQueen but grew up with the fragility and empathy of James Dean. And despite all the logic problems with that modern-day wit and sensibility, clashing with a time period western, it works, not in spite of it, but because of it.
The film has many aesthetics staples that are now copied so often, it’s hard to enjoy them for their originality, they've been overused to the point of parody now, like beginning the film in a black-and-white, with gray tints, and then switching to color as the story begins. Or the ending death scene, which may be interpreted as suicide, or may just be a prelude to Thelma and Louise type endings. (Well, actually “Thelma and Louise” would qualify as a modern-day Western) The movie, for all the faults of George Roy Hill, who was a good but impersonal director mostly known now for this and the other Newman/Redford combination film, "The Sting", is definitely salvaged by Conrad L. Hall's Oscar-winning cinematography. I didn't intend to do another Hall film so soon after "Road to Perdition", it just ended up that way, but when you go back, this western doesn't look like other westerns. He did something kinda peculiar, by overexposing most of the film. It got cleaned up in post, but the effect is still there; there weren't that many westerns that looked this breathtaking, and yet seemed like they were grated with a dark edge to it at the time.
Knowing the real story of Butch and Sundance, doesn’t take away from the movie, it helps to enjoy the film for what decisions were made in making this story. Does it matter that the Katharine Ross character in real life was a prostitute and not a schoolteacher? No. You get more sympathy from a schoolteacher, but the decisions she makes in the film would make more sense if she was a prostitute. They chose sympathy, and it probably makes more sense that a teacher would teach Butch and Sundance how to speak Spanish. (Although, I wouldn’t have any problem believing an old Western hooker would know Spanish, it might even come in handy {no pun intended}). It also makes perfect sense to me that Butch and Sundance would be talking about
Australia right before they’re killed. There’s also something perverse about the
town marshal trying to round a posse get pushed aside for a salesman selling a
two-wheeled contraption that’s the wave of the future. Who notices the
metaphorical castration of the Old West the scene represents anyway?
I said awhile ago that Bob Fosse's "Cabaret" was for all-intensive purposes the death of the traditional Hollywood musical; you could argue the same thing about the western with "Butch Cassidy..." not because of it's impact, there were several major westerns, including classic westerns that came later, from Henry Hathaway's "True Grit" all the way too Clint Eastwood's opus, "Unforgiven", the later of which has a better argument for that, but perhaps in terms of approach, you can argue "Butch & Sundance" probably had that impact. There were other neo-Westerns too, but none that were so distinctly modern in tone. The movie has more in common with "Lethal Weapon", which is also a movie that took a popular genre and turned it on it's head with a comedic approach to the material and characters, than it does the spaghetti westerns of it's time or Sam Peckinpah's work at that period.
That's probably the real secret as to it's greatness, why it continues to survive and refuses to go away, not because of it's failings as a western, but cause it succeeds at what this film actually is. It's one of the greatest and quintessential buddy comedies of all-time.
That's probably the real secret as to it's greatness, why it continues to survive and refuses to go away, not because of it's failings as a western, but cause it succeeds at what this film actually is. It's one of the greatest and quintessential buddy comedies of all-time.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
TV VIEWING 101-CLASS #14: REALITY TELEVISION: GENRE/SUBGENRES AND QUALITY ANALYSIS
Good Morning Class,
Alright, I know it's been awhile, but we're back. Hope you did your homework, I'll collect it later. Today, we're gonna be continuing on "Perspective" and how that is the major determining factor in quality analysis of reality programming, although we're gonna touch a little bit more on genres and subgenres, and I'm gonna be straight with you guys, it's a lot of reading. up front, unfortunately. I know.
For those confused, eh, down the hall, is where Film Viewing 225B: The Feature Film, the Cinema and You, where you all talk about cinema, if you're supposed to be in that class, it's down the hall and to the right? What's that, the door's lock? Well, then you're stuck here, talking about a piece of moving picture that's shot, written, directed, edited, lighted and every other part of the filmmaking process. And don't worry, you're not missing anything, I made that class up. NOW SIT DOWN, this is the subject for today!
Seriously if you all think reality or any other genre of television is that different from movies or cinema, than think again. As we discussed earlier, it's just another form of documentary filmmaking, and not even a new one. The only thing really new about it, is the term, "Reality" television. That didn't come around, until "Survivor", hit in America.
Now, "Survivor" of course, social experiment series, with a competition aspect, so, it's qualified as a reality-competition program, and to be honest, I don't really understand why that term stuck, more than others. Possibly because it's the real, first time the genre was, the biggest show on television. There's been popular ones before, 'The Real World" comes to mind, "Cops" also comes to mind. That was a whole other genre, especially big in the nineties, the-eh, true crime-recreation series. This would include "Unsolved Mysteries", "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol" stuff like that. "America's Most Wanted", like I said, "Reality" is a blanket term, used by the public for a lot of subgenres or flat out different genres entirely of television that all deal with, real people, real events, non-fiction, stories, being told about them, this one, just had a documentary recreation aspect to them.
Now, retroactively, while we talked a lot about the predecessors to reality, "An American Family" is probably the show most people think of as the original reality program, and also the series that created the first reality stars, in the Loud Family, especially the late Lance Loud, who was the first openly gay character/person on network television. In fact, he came out on network television, and this was back in the '70s. For our purposes, in terms of how to analyze a show, that's not really important, but culturally that's where a lot of people who think of as where the genre really began. Especially, since, what we really consider as the base of the reality genre, finding somebody or something that's interesting, and filming it, for documentation purposes that's pretty much the base of reality television. Back then, it was the typical white middle class family, and then, 25 years later, it was Ozzy Osbourne's family. Taking perspective out of it, which do you think is more interesting to see?
I don't know, you guys answer? That's the big question that every television execute's trying to figure out, while they search for the next one that'll capture the public's imagination.
So, why are there so many subgenres of reality television? Anybody have a guess? Sure, when something gets popular they start making and remaking it, but that's-, that's with everything. And with other genres, you can only do that so often. I mean, "Star Trek" was popular, that can lead to other sci-fi shows, but let's go back to "Star Search" again.
So, let's analyze this. First off, it's a talent competition ("The Gong Show", "America's Got Talent") , not the first, but definitely the biggest of those. Well, we had singing, ("American Idol", "The Voice"), Dancing, ("So You Think You Can Dance") of-, I'm sorry, dance crews ("American Best Dance Crew"), vocal group, ("The Sing-Off") Stand-Up Comedy ("Last Comic Standing") and Spokesmodels, ("America's Next Top Model") all, from this show, essentially. (Okay, "The Gong Show' predates "Star Search" but still) but there's like thirty reality series, based, practically just from this show.
"Now, yeah, but it's a talent, these people have talent, most of them." some would say.
Well, you ever sing? You, yeah you? You never sing? Not even in the car or in the shower? Any of you ever dance? Nobody here goes out dancing once in a while? Okay, there we go. Any of you take dance lessons at some point in your life. Yeah, a few of you, raise your hands, c'mon? Any, of you, ever take a date, dancing? Yeah, any of you ever date, period? Okay, I know this is a bunch of film geeks and whatnot, but I'm sure some of have been on a date at some point? How, about-eh, building stuff, any of you ever build something? A few of you? How about gardening; how about painting? How about, cooking? Any of you ever cook? How about eat? Oh, you all like to eat, okay. Can you all, think of a show or two based around those things, reality shows?
You like, to travel, any of you? Now, some of you, will blanket some of these, under other names and guises, for instance, "Lifestyle shows" or-eh, "Informational series", but essentially they're the same thing?
What's the difference between watching a bunch of drunk housewives cause a ruckus in a club, and watching a quiet, soft-spoken guy painting a picture of a bunch of trees? I mean, you're still watching people, you're watching them, act, be, in real life, doing something, something they like to do, or not but you're still people watching. It's not like one's contrived and the other isn't, they're both pretty contrived. You think those easels and paints were just sitting in front of the camera, in a TV studio? It's no different than making sure somebody gets angry with a champagne glass in their hand? It's not like thinks aren't just as staged in real life?
What, they are? You ever get tired and want to go to bed? Sure, where's your bed? In your house, who put it there? Oh, you did; why there, you could've put it anywhere? You wanted it there, in your room too? So, you've set up the bed in a particular place and the room the bed's in, in a particular place? If things weren't staged in life, you could've just slept anywhere you wanted, any time you wanted, any place you wanted?
Yeah "All the world's a stage," you damn fucking right it is!
So, everything's staged to some degree, including real life, and all reality television shows, and for that matter, all media for that matter, including regular films and television shows. So what's the difference? What makes one of these good, the other bad, or one of them better or weaker than the other? Say it with me!?
PERSPECTIVE!
Thank you! Perspective! Quality Analysis of reality shows, is about perspective. It's the one single thing, that's manipulated and altered, in order to fit a narrative and a point of view on the material. It can be manipulated in many, many different ways, sometimes to the point of where it can be illegal, and a breaking of the public's trust.... I talked about that in our discussion on game shows and the early scandals that, have basically controlled and oversaw everything that television's produced ever since, but it's the perspective that's manipulated.
I'll give you a recent example, and very tangible example, ""The Voice", probably the biggest reality show on TV at the moment, still. Biggest reality-competition one at least. There's a lot of differences between that show, and the other singing talent series, particularly, the big one they were up against, "American Idol", one of the big ones was that, they wanted to make sure, they didn't have a Simon Cowell character. They don't have a "Gong Show"-like round, where anybody can come in a tryout, at least not on camera. They have judges, who always accentuate positive aspects, that was a big thing, and they made sure to pre-select a lot of the participants, and set up the series so that the judges or mentors were selecting the contestant and not simply, giving them a pass or fail. Now, which perspective is better? Well, there's definitely entertainment value to seeing people who aren't talented trying to sing and not being able to, and seeing them sometimes having to confront that truth, but...- I would argue that, the stronger competition and the more detailed areas of praise is probably a stronger perspective, one thing that I would say makes "The Voice" better, but they're two different and distinct perspectives on essentially the same thing. Now, there's other aspects of those shows that also have arguably different perspective strengths and weaknesses but that's what you're looking at and looking for ultimately.
Yes, it's the same with every other genre, but it's a little more complex and crucial to see in most reality because it is so subtle. This is why I'm giving you guys some outside reading material today, 'cause I've gone through a few of these subgenres, and there's plenty more that one can do. If it's a part of a person's reality, you can probably construct a reality show around it, and of course, you can also construct a reality show around the people themselves, but most of these aspects-of-life subgenres are the former.
I brought up dating shows before, you're gonna read up on them a bit:
http://davidbaruffi.blogspot.com/2017/03/dating-shows-analysis-and-history-of.html
There's a bunch of them, there's good ones, there's bad ones, there's really bad ones, most of them intertwine with game shows, unfortunately. Don't necessarily want to think too deeply on our lives with that analogy, but still.
Cooking shows, that's another one:
http://davidbaruffi.blogspot.com/2014/06/cooking-shows-evolution-and-artistry-in.html
Very popular, everybody likes food, everybody likes good food. Hell, the only show other than "The Amazing Race" and "The Voice" to win the Primetime Reality-Competition Emmy, was a cooking show. "Top Chef', so....
Think about that too, btw, how for almost all of these genres, there's usually both, a more cinema verite approach to the aspect of life, just documenting the event as is, sort of thing, and there's often some kind of competition show format out there as well.
Yes, even in courtroom/judge shows:
http://davidbaruffi.blogspot.com/2016/10/legalcourtroom-judge-shows-analytical.html
However, "The Law Firm" is mostly a forgotten failed experiment now, since it mostly just seemed like "The Apprentice" but with attorneys, (although I didn't hate it) and a courtroom is essentially a competition anyway. It even has a judge to determine the winner. (I know, that joke was awful, I apologize)
So, are there any exceptions to that idea of everything about reality shows are about being apart of everyday life?
Right, there is, the watching of people doing things that are unusual or, not normal for them to be doing. Fish out of water stories aren't new for reality of course. "Reality" is already heightened, reality to begin with and the Heisenberg Principle is of course, applying here, but-uh, yeah, I guess hypothetically, people could eat these gross things.... yeah, this is about where you can start calling reality shows, "exploitative". All media is of course exploitative to some degree, but yeah, this is around when it turns more gross and more, "Let's see what they'll do for money."
That said however, there also is good precedent for this, 'cause basically it's another form of the physical game show. Simplifying this, it shows that might structurally be similar to a game show of some kind,but are in reality more of a physical activity people must perform to win. "Beat the Clock" is probably the earliest form of this, but I suspect the most influential modern-day example, other than "Survivor" is "American Gladiators". The original one anyway.
There were other shows before that one, but that's probably the spiritual predecessor to the rest, and it's a good example of a show being about what people can do, as oppose to what people will do. "Survivor"'s kind of an example of that too, how do you survive on an island? Okay, it's really more about, the events and challenges then any actual surviving, but, yeah, there is something to this too, and determining the quality of these, can be difficult. Depending on what their going for, but I'd argue that, the competition aspect is of these kind of shows, when that's highlighted, that's when the show remains the strongest. That's probably the reason why "The Amazing Race" holds all the Emmy records compared to say, "Survivor", or "Big Brother" something else along those lines. While those are competition shows as well, along with challenges the competitors have to overcome to succeed and win, it's hard to argue that that's the focus of the show. They may tend more towards the societal experiment edge, something that Stanley Milgram might have concocted and there's good and bad ways of doing that too, but there's more of an emphasis on the battle and competitive aspect in "The Amazing Race". It is a literal race around the world, and the editing, pacing and storytelling of that series, all emphasize that much more than other shows. There might be more personal and touching moments elsewhere, but that's secondary to the competition. When something like that, tries to be the focus of a series, especially a competition series of some kind, and it's manufactured, you start to lose interest and intrigue really fast. Kinda akin to how annoying it was that every "Deal or No Deal" contestant had some sad sob story. Yeah, sure red flag that the game isn't interesting or compelling enough as a game on it's own. Mix of characters with differing backstories is fine, but that shouldn't necessarily be the focus.
People, can and do survive on a desert island, people do perform dangerous stunts for money, people are athletic enough to go through the Eliminator, or whatever the "American Ninja Warrior" obstacle course is called. People, can be fascinated by people eating gross things for money, but they probably shouldn't. Yeah, it might be better to watch people as they try to overcome their drug addictions and hoarding problems. At least that's compelling real-life human drama. (And not a competition-reality program, so that standard not in play. There really are a lot of aspects to this genre, aren't there? Too many to full grasp in one shot.)
Anyway, you guys have a lot of reading to do, so there's not too much homework. Just think about life and people and the things people do, and try to come up with a pitch oran idea for a reality show, of some kind, that we've never seen or heard before. Any kind of reality show is fine, just something or some people doing things that you think could be compelling to watch on television. Doesn't have to be a fully-formed pitch, just a pitch something about people that you think can be interesting to see on television and explain why.
Alright, next class, we'll dive into a dying genre, but a critical one and varied one, daytime talk shows. The irony of Jerry Springer's final thought. I'm kidding, there's more to it than that. Anyway, class dismissed everyone.
(Folds over arms and blinks like Jeannie, doors magically unlock)
You can leave now. and no, I'm not explaining how I can do that.
Alright, I know it's been awhile, but we're back. Hope you did your homework, I'll collect it later. Today, we're gonna be continuing on "Perspective" and how that is the major determining factor in quality analysis of reality programming, although we're gonna touch a little bit more on genres and subgenres, and I'm gonna be straight with you guys, it's a lot of reading. up front, unfortunately. I know.
For those confused, eh, down the hall, is where Film Viewing 225B: The Feature Film, the Cinema and You, where you all talk about cinema, if you're supposed to be in that class, it's down the hall and to the right? What's that, the door's lock? Well, then you're stuck here, talking about a piece of moving picture that's shot, written, directed, edited, lighted and every other part of the filmmaking process. And don't worry, you're not missing anything, I made that class up. NOW SIT DOWN, this is the subject for today!
Seriously if you all think reality or any other genre of television is that different from movies or cinema, than think again. As we discussed earlier, it's just another form of documentary filmmaking, and not even a new one. The only thing really new about it, is the term, "Reality" television. That didn't come around, until "Survivor", hit in America.
Now, "Survivor" of course, social experiment series, with a competition aspect, so, it's qualified as a reality-competition program, and to be honest, I don't really understand why that term stuck, more than others. Possibly because it's the real, first time the genre was, the biggest show on television. There's been popular ones before, 'The Real World" comes to mind, "Cops" also comes to mind. That was a whole other genre, especially big in the nineties, the-eh, true crime-recreation series. This would include "Unsolved Mysteries", "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol" stuff like that. "America's Most Wanted", like I said, "Reality" is a blanket term, used by the public for a lot of subgenres or flat out different genres entirely of television that all deal with, real people, real events, non-fiction, stories, being told about them, this one, just had a documentary recreation aspect to them.
Now, retroactively, while we talked a lot about the predecessors to reality, "An American Family" is probably the show most people think of as the original reality program, and also the series that created the first reality stars, in the Loud Family, especially the late Lance Loud, who was the first openly gay character/person on network television. In fact, he came out on network television, and this was back in the '70s. For our purposes, in terms of how to analyze a show, that's not really important, but culturally that's where a lot of people who think of as where the genre really began. Especially, since, what we really consider as the base of the reality genre, finding somebody or something that's interesting, and filming it, for documentation purposes that's pretty much the base of reality television. Back then, it was the typical white middle class family, and then, 25 years later, it was Ozzy Osbourne's family. Taking perspective out of it, which do you think is more interesting to see?
I don't know, you guys answer? That's the big question that every television execute's trying to figure out, while they search for the next one that'll capture the public's imagination.
So, why are there so many subgenres of reality television? Anybody have a guess? Sure, when something gets popular they start making and remaking it, but that's-, that's with everything. And with other genres, you can only do that so often. I mean, "Star Trek" was popular, that can lead to other sci-fi shows, but let's go back to "Star Search" again.
So, let's analyze this. First off, it's a talent competition ("The Gong Show", "America's Got Talent") , not the first, but definitely the biggest of those. Well, we had singing, ("American Idol", "The Voice"), Dancing, ("So You Think You Can Dance") of-, I'm sorry, dance crews ("American Best Dance Crew"), vocal group, ("The Sing-Off") Stand-Up Comedy ("Last Comic Standing") and Spokesmodels, ("America's Next Top Model") all, from this show, essentially. (Okay, "The Gong Show' predates "Star Search" but still) but there's like thirty reality series, based, practically just from this show.
"Now, yeah, but it's a talent, these people have talent, most of them." some would say.
Well, you ever sing? You, yeah you? You never sing? Not even in the car or in the shower? Any of you ever dance? Nobody here goes out dancing once in a while? Okay, there we go. Any of you take dance lessons at some point in your life. Yeah, a few of you, raise your hands, c'mon? Any, of you, ever take a date, dancing? Yeah, any of you ever date, period? Okay, I know this is a bunch of film geeks and whatnot, but I'm sure some of have been on a date at some point? How, about-eh, building stuff, any of you ever build something? A few of you? How about gardening; how about painting? How about, cooking? Any of you ever cook? How about eat? Oh, you all like to eat, okay. Can you all, think of a show or two based around those things, reality shows?
You like, to travel, any of you? Now, some of you, will blanket some of these, under other names and guises, for instance, "Lifestyle shows" or-eh, "Informational series", but essentially they're the same thing?
What's the difference between watching a bunch of drunk housewives cause a ruckus in a club, and watching a quiet, soft-spoken guy painting a picture of a bunch of trees? I mean, you're still watching people, you're watching them, act, be, in real life, doing something, something they like to do, or not but you're still people watching. It's not like one's contrived and the other isn't, they're both pretty contrived. You think those easels and paints were just sitting in front of the camera, in a TV studio? It's no different than making sure somebody gets angry with a champagne glass in their hand? It's not like thinks aren't just as staged in real life?
What, they are? You ever get tired and want to go to bed? Sure, where's your bed? In your house, who put it there? Oh, you did; why there, you could've put it anywhere? You wanted it there, in your room too? So, you've set up the bed in a particular place and the room the bed's in, in a particular place? If things weren't staged in life, you could've just slept anywhere you wanted, any time you wanted, any place you wanted?
Yeah "All the world's a stage," you damn fucking right it is!
So, everything's staged to some degree, including real life, and all reality television shows, and for that matter, all media for that matter, including regular films and television shows. So what's the difference? What makes one of these good, the other bad, or one of them better or weaker than the other? Say it with me!?
PERSPECTIVE!
Thank you! Perspective! Quality Analysis of reality shows, is about perspective. It's the one single thing, that's manipulated and altered, in order to fit a narrative and a point of view on the material. It can be manipulated in many, many different ways, sometimes to the point of where it can be illegal, and a breaking of the public's trust.... I talked about that in our discussion on game shows and the early scandals that, have basically controlled and oversaw everything that television's produced ever since, but it's the perspective that's manipulated.
I'll give you a recent example, and very tangible example, ""The Voice", probably the biggest reality show on TV at the moment, still. Biggest reality-competition one at least. There's a lot of differences between that show, and the other singing talent series, particularly, the big one they were up against, "American Idol", one of the big ones was that, they wanted to make sure, they didn't have a Simon Cowell character. They don't have a "Gong Show"-like round, where anybody can come in a tryout, at least not on camera. They have judges, who always accentuate positive aspects, that was a big thing, and they made sure to pre-select a lot of the participants, and set up the series so that the judges or mentors were selecting the contestant and not simply, giving them a pass or fail. Now, which perspective is better? Well, there's definitely entertainment value to seeing people who aren't talented trying to sing and not being able to, and seeing them sometimes having to confront that truth, but...- I would argue that, the stronger competition and the more detailed areas of praise is probably a stronger perspective, one thing that I would say makes "The Voice" better, but they're two different and distinct perspectives on essentially the same thing. Now, there's other aspects of those shows that also have arguably different perspective strengths and weaknesses but that's what you're looking at and looking for ultimately.
Yes, it's the same with every other genre, but it's a little more complex and crucial to see in most reality because it is so subtle. This is why I'm giving you guys some outside reading material today, 'cause I've gone through a few of these subgenres, and there's plenty more that one can do. If it's a part of a person's reality, you can probably construct a reality show around it, and of course, you can also construct a reality show around the people themselves, but most of these aspects-of-life subgenres are the former.
I brought up dating shows before, you're gonna read up on them a bit:
http://davidbaruffi.blogspot.com/2017/03/dating-shows-analysis-and-history-of.html
There's a bunch of them, there's good ones, there's bad ones, there's really bad ones, most of them intertwine with game shows, unfortunately. Don't necessarily want to think too deeply on our lives with that analogy, but still.
Cooking shows, that's another one:
http://davidbaruffi.blogspot.com/2014/06/cooking-shows-evolution-and-artistry-in.html
Very popular, everybody likes food, everybody likes good food. Hell, the only show other than "The Amazing Race" and "The Voice" to win the Primetime Reality-Competition Emmy, was a cooking show. "Top Chef', so....
Think about that too, btw, how for almost all of these genres, there's usually both, a more cinema verite approach to the aspect of life, just documenting the event as is, sort of thing, and there's often some kind of competition show format out there as well.
Yes, even in courtroom/judge shows:
http://davidbaruffi.blogspot.com/2016/10/legalcourtroom-judge-shows-analytical.html
However, "The Law Firm" is mostly a forgotten failed experiment now, since it mostly just seemed like "The Apprentice" but with attorneys, (although I didn't hate it) and a courtroom is essentially a competition anyway. It even has a judge to determine the winner. (I know, that joke was awful, I apologize)
So, are there any exceptions to that idea of everything about reality shows are about being apart of everyday life?
Right, there is, the watching of people doing things that are unusual or, not normal for them to be doing. Fish out of water stories aren't new for reality of course. "Reality" is already heightened, reality to begin with and the Heisenberg Principle is of course, applying here, but-uh, yeah, I guess hypothetically, people could eat these gross things.... yeah, this is about where you can start calling reality shows, "exploitative". All media is of course exploitative to some degree, but yeah, this is around when it turns more gross and more, "Let's see what they'll do for money."
That said however, there also is good precedent for this, 'cause basically it's another form of the physical game show. Simplifying this, it shows that might structurally be similar to a game show of some kind,but are in reality more of a physical activity people must perform to win. "Beat the Clock" is probably the earliest form of this, but I suspect the most influential modern-day example, other than "Survivor" is "American Gladiators". The original one anyway.
There were other shows before that one, but that's probably the spiritual predecessor to the rest, and it's a good example of a show being about what people can do, as oppose to what people will do. "Survivor"'s kind of an example of that too, how do you survive on an island? Okay, it's really more about, the events and challenges then any actual surviving, but, yeah, there is something to this too, and determining the quality of these, can be difficult. Depending on what their going for, but I'd argue that, the competition aspect is of these kind of shows, when that's highlighted, that's when the show remains the strongest. That's probably the reason why "The Amazing Race" holds all the Emmy records compared to say, "Survivor", or "Big Brother" something else along those lines. While those are competition shows as well, along with challenges the competitors have to overcome to succeed and win, it's hard to argue that that's the focus of the show. They may tend more towards the societal experiment edge, something that Stanley Milgram might have concocted and there's good and bad ways of doing that too, but there's more of an emphasis on the battle and competitive aspect in "The Amazing Race". It is a literal race around the world, and the editing, pacing and storytelling of that series, all emphasize that much more than other shows. There might be more personal and touching moments elsewhere, but that's secondary to the competition. When something like that, tries to be the focus of a series, especially a competition series of some kind, and it's manufactured, you start to lose interest and intrigue really fast. Kinda akin to how annoying it was that every "Deal or No Deal" contestant had some sad sob story. Yeah, sure red flag that the game isn't interesting or compelling enough as a game on it's own. Mix of characters with differing backstories is fine, but that shouldn't necessarily be the focus.
People, can and do survive on a desert island, people do perform dangerous stunts for money, people are athletic enough to go through the Eliminator, or whatever the "American Ninja Warrior" obstacle course is called. People, can be fascinated by people eating gross things for money, but they probably shouldn't. Yeah, it might be better to watch people as they try to overcome their drug addictions and hoarding problems. At least that's compelling real-life human drama. (And not a competition-reality program, so that standard not in play. There really are a lot of aspects to this genre, aren't there? Too many to full grasp in one shot.)
Anyway, you guys have a lot of reading to do, so there's not too much homework. Just think about life and people and the things people do, and try to come up with a pitch oran idea for a reality show, of some kind, that we've never seen or heard before. Any kind of reality show is fine, just something or some people doing things that you think could be compelling to watch on television. Doesn't have to be a fully-formed pitch, just a pitch something about people that you think can be interesting to see on television and explain why.
Alright, next class, we'll dive into a dying genre, but a critical one and varied one, daytime talk shows. The irony of Jerry Springer's final thought. I'm kidding, there's more to it than that. Anyway, class dismissed everyone.
(Folds over arms and blinks like Jeannie, doors magically unlock)
You can leave now. and no, I'm not explaining how I can do that.
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